After a year at the helm, Novo Nordisk's CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar's task of closing the gap to pacesetter Eli Lilly doesn't look to be getting any easier.
Doustdar joined Novo at the height of spiralling erosion to rivals in the obesity and type 2 diabetes market segments. While the Danish drugmaker has since gained approval for oral Wegovy, a drug that set a record-breaking pace for a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) at launch, other pipeline products have had mixed clinical results. Earlier this week, cardiovascular disease drug ziltivekimab failed a Phase III trial, while CagriSema fell short in a non-inferiority trial comparing it to Lilly's tirzepatide.
Coupled with ongoing sales decline, dealmaking presents an obvious avenue in which to boost pipeline offerings. Novo has already said it is actively targeting bolt-on acquisitions, with Doustdar reiterating during the Q2 earnings call that large-scale, transformative deals are still a way off.
"I'm very proud of our internal R&D and pipeline, but no company has a monopoly on good ideas. I've also said we are in every data room to try and see who else has a better idea, who else can give us ******* ets that we can bolt on, and complement what [our internal R&D teams] are doing," Doustdar said.
"I'm a person who never starts with a no to one day [being able to conduct transformative M&A], but you have to be in a very different situation than Novo Nordisk is in today," he added.
#pipeline
Doustdar joined Novo at the height of spiralling erosion to rivals in the obesity and type 2 diabetes market segments. While the Danish drugmaker has since gained approval for oral Wegovy, a drug that set a record-breaking pace for a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) at launch, other pipeline products have had mixed clinical results. Earlier this week, cardiovascular disease drug ziltivekimab failed a Phase III trial, while CagriSema fell short in a non-inferiority trial comparing it to Lilly's tirzepatide.
Coupled with ongoing sales decline, dealmaking presents an obvious avenue in which to boost pipeline offerings. Novo has already said it is actively targeting bolt-on acquisitions, with Doustdar reiterating during the Q2 earnings call that large-scale, transformative deals are still a way off.
"I'm very proud of our internal R&D and pipeline, but no company has a monopoly on good ideas. I've also said we are in every data room to try and see who else has a better idea, who else can give us ******* ets that we can bolt on, and complement what [our internal R&D teams] are doing," Doustdar said.
"I'm a person who never starts with a no to one day [being able to conduct transformative M&A], but you have to be in a very different situation than Novo Nordisk is in today," he added.
#pipeline
3 months ago
